she kindly stopped for me
by hellishtrollop
Summary: "Did you know that they call you the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry? I couldn't possibly kill someone with such an important title — even if it is hyphenated." No one would have ever expected Harry Potter to befriend Death, but that's life.
1. do not stand at my grave and weep

_Do you See, child?_

A hand, stretching out towards him in the darkness; he closed his eyes, seeking quiet. Safety. Anything that would take him away from here and _now_. Bright white stars flickered behind his eyes. _Thud-thud-thump_ went his uncle's feet on the stairs over his cupboard. The brutish man was muttering as he stomped down the stairs.

Void, he thought. Blank. Vacant. An empty space. Blackness. A sea of darkness which would suck them all in and leave nothing at all. A beginning. An end. A beginning.

There was a soft, cold laugh in his head, feminine and high-pitched.

_Do you See me?_

There were three locks on his cupboard; each one made a rattling, clicking sound as they were undone by his uncle. To him, it felt like a call of death. His uncle would beat him to death for this.

"Please," he whispered, "Please help me."

"Your uncle isn't a very friendly man, is he, dear?" said a voice to the left of him.

The door swung open.

Someone screamed. It was not him.

—

"Am I dead?" he asked her, and Death laughed at him. It had become a sort of bedtime ritual for them: he would ask if he was dead, and she would say—

"Why, no," as she tucked him into bed. It was the nicest bed he'd ever been in.

She called it a bed fit for kings, but he knew that he would never be royalty.

Death seemed to think otherwise.

"You will not die for a very long time, my child."

She lifted her hand to her mouth and bit down around the strawberry in her fingertips with white teeth.

He knew it was odd, because he had been quite certain that she hadn't been holding a strawberry before. Death did that; made things appear from nothing. He always saw her, gaunt and tall with almost skeletal fingers and a rusty sickle next to her somewhere. He knew that she had dark hair but he couldn't remember the exact shape of her face, couldn't remember the color of her eyes, couldn't recall anything else about her physical appearance.

He had never asked why. He had a feeling that she wouldn't like the question.

"Did you know," she said through a mouthful of strawberry — the fruit stained her teeth red and Harry imagined it was blood on her tongue and lips and teeth, and for some reason, that thought didn't scare him at all, "that they call you the Boy-Who-Lived, Harry? I couldn't possibly kill someone with such an important title — even if it _is_ hyphenated."

"As opposed to the Boy-Who-Died? I'm sure there are plenty of boys who lived."

She laughed, loud and sharp, like he'd said something awfully funny, and told him to go to sleep.

He did, and in the morning, he did not even remember the color of her hair.

—

Harry Potter was ten, nearly eleven, years old and fully equipped with all the knowledge that a young wizard had to be equipped with when he got his Hogwarts letter.

"Death!" he called softly on the front porch of their shared cabin as he examined the red wax H that the letter was stamped with. The woman appeared in front of him, a tall cloaked being on the back of a skeletal horse. That was how he knew that she had just returned from Taking someone. She never went anywhere important without her faithful steed.

"Look!" said Harry excitedly, bouncing on his heels. "I got my letter."

Death leaned down and touched him on the head. She did this so often that he had long since gotten used to the eerie, cold feeling that washed over him every time he did. It was like sinking into an ice bath without the water. "So you did," she replied, and she was smiling.

He flipped it over.

_Mr. H. Potter  
>The Red Room with the Best View<br>Death's Domain_

"The letters are not written by hand, or by people; the quills do all the work for them. They don't even know that you have been taken away from the Dursleys, I bet," said Death, looking amused for a reason that Harry didn't quite understand.

"How did the letter manage to find us _here_?"

"Owls are smarter than anyone else, Harry. They always get the letters to the right place."

"Owls?" he replied incredulously. "Why owls?"

"That's something you'll need to ask the wizards, I'm afraid. Shall we reply?"

—

"Can I sit here?" asked a freckled, red-headed boy with a smudge of dirt on the right side of his nose. "All of the other compartments are full." Harry had the familiar, ominous, feeling that he would not end up liking this boy much, but he nodded and gestured to the seat across from him. After all, Death had taught him: manners first.

"If you'd like. But don't make conversation, please. I'm reading," said Death.

"If you'd like. But don't make conversation, please. I'm reading," said Harry.

The boy stared at him oddly, but nodded and settled in.

After a while, the compartment door opened again. Harry sighed and hoped this would not keep happening. "Sorry," said the boy as he peeked in, "but have you seen a toad at all?"

Harry shook his head. The boy wailed like Death herself was upon him. "He keeps getting away from me!" Death, beside Harry, laughed as she bit into one of the pumpkin pasties Harry had gotten from the trolley earlier on; she spit it out with a grimace of disgust and muttered something that Harry thought sounded an awful lot like _I hate pumpkin_.

Then she swallowed and spoke. "He'll turn up, I'm sure."

"He'll turn up, I'm sure," Harry repeated, and then of his own volition, "If I find him, I'll let you know."

The boy left, looking slightly less upset. "Don't know why he's so bothered," said the red-head, "If I'd bought a toad I'd lose it as quick as I could. Mind you, I bought Scabbers, so I can't talk."

Harry twitched.

"No, you really can't, can you?" said Death.

"No, you really can't, can you?" said Harry.

The boy looked offended, and then fell silent again. Harry was glad.

What must have been ten minutes later, the door opened again. Harry didn't look up, but his skin crawled when a familiar voice spoke in the silence. "Is it true? They're saying all down the train that Harry Potter's in this compartment. So it's you, is it?" Harry winced as Ron let out a little gasp that sounded far too feminine for his own liking. Death sniggered.

"Yes," said Harry, not looking up. He knew what he would find. He had encountered the boy in Madam Malkin's. Death had called him a pompous twat and Harry wholeheartedly agreed.

"My name's Malfoy. Draco Malfoy," the boy said louder, as though Harry was hard of hearing. Harry sighed and looked up, closing his book as he decided that he likely wouldn't be able to finish the book with all of these unnecessary interruptions.

James Bond was the first thing Harry thought of, and he snorted; thankfully, it was covered up by the noise Ron made, which sounded like a choking laugh.

"Think my name's funny, do you?" sneered Malfoy. "No need to ask who you are. My father told me all the Weasleys have red hair, freckles, and more children than they can afford."

Harry did not bother hiding his laugh. It _had_ been funny, after all. And true, really. He had seen the Weasleys on the platform; there had been a lot of them.

Ron stared at him as though he'd been utterly and completely betrayed by the closest friend he'd ever had. Harry tried not to roll his eyes. Malfoy turned back to him and continued. "You'll soon find out some wizarding families are much better than others, Potter. You don't want to go making friends with the wrong sort. _I_ can help you there."

He had the sudden urge to punch Malfoy, not because of what he was saying but because of how he was saying it. Harry decided that the boy reminded him far too much of Dudley. The pale boy with the slicked back hair held out his hand expectantly.

Harry stared at it for a moment.

"I do not want to make friends with either of you," murmured Death compellingly in Harry's ear.

Turning his cold, vacant stare upon Draco, Harry frowned disapprovingly. "I do not want to make friends with either of you," he echoed, "I am not here to make friends," he continued on, strengthened by Death's approval. "If you like, you may stay here, as long as you are quiet. All of you. And if not, you can all leave. The door is right there, thank you."

He reached for his book again and opened it to the page he'd closed it on.

And there was silence.

Blissful silence.

Punctuated shortly by the slam of the compartment door as Ron Weasley stood and left.

—

_what a curious mind indeed, mister potter._

_what  
>do you<br>mean  
>?<em>

_you have none of the bravery for gryffindor—  
><em>—_and none of the loyalty for hufflepuff. you  
>certainly have the intelligence and the longing<br>for knowledge of a ravenclaw, but... you want to  
>be great, don't you, mister potter?<em>

_y e s  
>i have<br>always  
>wanted<em>

_SLYTHERIN!_

As he turned forward and stood, surprised by the fact that the hat had ended their conversation so suddenly, he realized that everyone looked equally stunned. The Hufflepuffs, to his surprise, were the first to begin clapping politely, and that seemed to set the Slytherins off completely.

Theodore Nott and Millicent Bulstrode, two Slytherins who had been sorted before him, stood up together and began screeching. "We've got Potter! We've got Potter!"

The other Slytherins joined in, all sense of decorum lost.

Slightly amused despite himself, he sat down next to Bulstrode. The girl clapped him hard on the back, so hard that he nearly toppled over into the table.

"I like this girl," said Death.

—

Death thought Severus Snape was a very interesting man, but Harry was reminded of an awful, intelligent, not-so-bulbous Dudley. It seemed that Snape, Dudley and Malfoy had all been destined to make his life unpleasant.

"Potter!" snapped Snape with a sneer, and it seemed that he often did a lot of things that began with the letter _s_. "What would I get if I added powdered root of asphodel to an infusion of wormwood?"

"These questions are not in your books," said Death beside him, amused. She whispered into his ear, "He's challenging you, Harry. Say Draught of the Living Death."

"It makes a potion called the Draught of the Living Death, Professor."

A cascade of emotions flickered across the Professor's face; surprise, anger, and then nothing.

"Ah, so our resident celebrity _has_ opened a book in his lifetime," he said, and no one laughed. He didn't seem to care, continuing his interrogation of sorts with relentless determination.

"Where would you look if I told you to find me a bezoar?"

He knew that one. It was undoubtedly easy. "The stomach of a goat, Professor." He glanced to Daphne Greengrass, who was idly twirling her hair between her fingertips and chewing on it. "And girls who eat their own hair, sometimes. It's a _nasty_ habit." He bared his teeth and, as expected, she looked at him with a most horrified expression and spit the blonde strand out of her mouth. Death tittered.

"What is the difference between monkshood and wolfsbane?"

"They're the same plant," said Death, moving in between him and Snape so that he was not staring at the man but at her somewhat obscured figure, an almost skeletal hand reaching out to rest over Harry's own, on the desk. "and they share the name _aconite_."

"They're the same plant," parroted Harry, "and they share the name _aconite_."

"Very good," gritted Snape, as though to say it physically pained him. It was rather amusing, really, but Harry did not smile. Death, however, laughed aloud. "Ten points to Slytherin for not being a complete dunderhead. _Well_?" he added as he spun on his heel to return to the front of the classroom, "Why aren't you all writing this down?" Harry had the feeling that, were he in any other house, he would have gotten ten points _taken_ for being a know-it-all.

"Why, Harry," Death said as they left the potions classroom later on, "I think Professor Snape hates you." She sounded like she was grinning. Harry had no doubt that she _was_.

"Really?" muttered Harry sardonically, "I had no idea."

Death's laughter was long and loud, and it bounced off the dungeon corridors, and no one but himself heard it. It was a pity: her laughter was beautiful.

—

Thursday was their first flying lesson. The broom leapt with ease into his hand, climbing on was just as easy, and flying felt wonderful; but he was no less glad to be back on the ground with Death, who, to his surprise, hadn't followed him up. He knew for a fact that she could fly, but she was grinning at him when he got back down and made him turn around to watch the ensuing disaster. Neville Longbottom had never seemed to be very good at anything except for Herbology, and he proved that even now as he fell a little over twenty feet and onto the ground with a sickening crack.

Harry didn't pay much attention to the rest, watching Neville as he left, tearful, with the hawk-like woman he knew as Madam Hooch. As soon as Malfoy made himself noticeable, so unlike a Slytherin that Harry didn't understand how he had gotten into the green-and-silver without _some_ complaint from the others (perhaps the hat could be bribed?), Harry turned his gaze away, bored.

"Aren't you going to _do_ something?" gaped Ron Weasley, drawing Harry's attention back to Malfoy, who had begun a little game of Toss the Remembrall. The ball was bouncing every time it struck a tree or the ground, and Bulstrode always stepped forward to toss it back up to Malfoy, seeming amused.

"Look, Harry," laughed Death. "They're playing a game."

"No," he replied to Ron's earlier question, "Why should I? It's hardly my problem, and they'll get in trouble anyway when Madam Hooch returns. I have no desire to get detention, thank you."

Death nudged Harry gently in the side. "Do you want to see something funny?" she asked, like she was the child and Harry was the adult, but the boy wasted no time in nodding.

"Why not?"

He watched curiously as Death flicked her fingers, and Malfoy's broom began to jerk in the air. The boy let out a sharp scream. He sounded like Petunia. The broom bucked once, twice, and then Malfoy fell off of it, dropping faster and faster, and screaming all the while. He landed with a crack, like Neville had, and to Harry's amusement, the Remembrall was the only thing not harmed in the fall; it bounced to the ground dully and rolled to a stop at Death's feet.

Neville Longbottom had been quieter than this pale, crying, shocked boy, Harry realized.

It was rather pathetic. Just minutes ago, Malfoy had been taunting Longbottom, had been laughing about him behind his back; and now he was in the exact same position.

Harry smiled, and it was a sickly sort of smile. "Did you see his face, the great lump?" he said to those who were close enough to listen. It was a mere echo of Malfoy's earlier words, and they all knew it.

Parvati Patil, who had been one of the only ones who had defended Longbottom earlier on, snorted.

Malfoy was crying.

But Death — Death was laughing.


	2. i am not there i do not sleep

"The three key ingredients for Forgetfulness Potion?"

"Lethe river water, mistletoe berries, and...valerian sprigs."

"Sleeping draught."

"Flobberworm mucus, lavender, and valerian sprigs."

"Swelling solution."

"Bat spleens, pufferfish eyes, dried nettles."

Death grinned at him. He could feel her approval, and he smiled back. "Well done, little one," she commented gently, reaching to pluck a stone from the shore of the Great Lake and throw it over the surface of the lake. From where he was lying on the grass by a tree, he could see the Giant Squid's tentacles as it swam back and forth; more often than not, the being would lift one of its tentacles and bat a tossed stone back.

Were someone to look upon them — and Harry had no doubt that someone already _had_ — they would see nothing but him, lying underneath a thick, old tree that had been there for a very long time and witnessed many things. They would not see Death, his closest, oldest and only friend, who had never left his side for more than a couple of hours to Reap someone.

"Would you like to hear a secret, Harry?" asked Death, who had always treated him like a nephew or a son; who had always treated him like a very young child, no matter his real age. To say that he minded would have been a blatant lie, for Death was the closest thing to family he would ever get, and that was almost sad, how certain he felt thinking and saying that. Death was _Death_, and yet she was a hundred — no, a thousand. . .no, a _million_ times better than Vernon and Petunia and Dudley.

"Yes," he said lazily, catching a chocolate frog as it hopped from its box and over the grass. He bit its leg off and it stopped moving; he had always thought the whole thing rather grotesque, but chocolate was chocolate. "Of course."

Death leaned in to whisper in his ear. "Professor Quirrell has two faces." And then she vanished.

Harry blinked and was left to stare at the spot she had been in only seconds ago.

"Oh, dear," he muttered out loud, "What's _that_ supposed to mean?"

—

"You know Hermione Granger, don't you? The Ravenclaw?"

The boy shrugged, flipping idly through the book at his fingertips even as he replied. "Passingly. She lets me copy off of her notes in History of Magic as long as she has access to your collection of books in my trunk. Why?"

Death plucked a grape from the vine in her hand and popped it into her mouth with a dismissive noise. "She's set to die in a few hours. By...a troll, apparently."

Harry blinked, and Death looked proud as she finally caught his full attention. "A troll? _Here_?" At her nod, he frowned. "What would a troll be doing in Hogwarts?"

"You shouldn't ask _me_. I hate the smelly things. Far too dumb for my liking. I'll take a golem anyday, thank you very much."

Harry stole a grape out of Death's hand, smirking at her when she glared at him. "Should I save her?"

"If you think you can kill a troll, then feel free."

"The question is not whether I can, but whether I want to."

Death giggled, and she sounded, for one eerie moment, like a young girl. "Exactly."

—

"_Occaeco_! Move your arse, Granger!"

Harry had decided, merely two hours ago, that he would let Granger die. After all, it was hardly his problem; it was most certainly _not_ his job to kill a troll just to save some girl. And yet, here he was, in the girl's bathroom with a hyperventilating Granger and a very angry troll. Ron Weasley. Yes, Ron Weasley was to blame for this — all of it. After all, he was the reason Granger had been crying in the girl's bathroom. He hoped that the boy was going to die soon, or else he'd have to spend seven years in the same school as that red-headed little brat, and he wasn't entirely certain he wanted to be doing that.

The troll stumbled around blindly, angrily groaning. He had the feeling that something _bad_ was going to happen soon, so he took a breath and used what was at his disposal. His first thought was to use the _Avada Kedavra_ curse, naturally. He'd used it only once before: on a rat, but he had the feeling that it wouldn't go over very well with the professors when — _if_ — they arrived, so he breathed in and shouted, "_Expulso_!"

He prayed that it would work.

It did. The troll slammed his club into the sinks one more time, crushing the porcelain over the floor, and then Harry saw it coming before it happened.

The lumbering beast's head exploded. It was disgusting. Hermione Granger shrieked from her position under the safe sinks behind him and fainted as the room was showered in a gory mess of blood and brain matter and skull shards. Odd, really: troll blood was almost black, it was such a dark red —

Death tittered behind him. "You're in trouble," she singsonged, and something took place in his stomach. Something like absolute dread, that only grew and festered as he turned around.

Three professors were in the doorway, staring at him dumbly. Quirrell was gaping. Snape's eyes were the widest he'd ever seen them, and McGonagall was clutching her chest as though her heart was about to beat right out of it.

He smiled. "I can explain _everything_. Trust me."

—

"Boy-Who-Lived indeed," murmured Death, voice thick with false disapproval, who was sitting on the edge of his bed, after checking him over twice for any deadly injuries. She had found none, of course. Harry was good at fighting, but he was even better at running, thanks to years of avoiding Dudley.

The boy rolled his eyes. "Don't pretend, Death. You enjoyed that _completely_."

Death grinned unabashedly and gave Harry a chocolate frog. He thought it a rather mundane reward for saving someone's life, but he didn't complain. "I did, yes. And to think, they took _points_."

"They gave me more points than they took away," he pointed out lazily, biting off the leg of the chocolate frog. It stopped squirming. He hated the things: they were so _morbid_, and that was coming from him, who spent all his time around Death every day, but chocolate was chocolate.

And he liked chocolate.

"I'm very proud of you," she said, and if she hadn't been laughing, he would have taken it seriously. But Death never offered him anything that _was_ serious, when it came to compliments and things like _I love you_s. She wasn't comfortable with affection, and neither was he. It worked out well for both of them. "Nearly your third month at school and you've already killed a troll!"

"Yes. The Boy-Who-Lived strikes again," he replied dryly, and gave her the rest of the chocolate frog.

—

Hermione Granger thanked him profusely the next morning, tears glittering in her eyes, hair even bushier than normal if that was possible. She even tried to hug him, although he'd seen the gesture coming long before and ducked out of the way while he still could.

"No, Granger," he'd said, shoving her away, "I don't need a hug. I don't _want_ a hug."

She'd looked about ready to burst out into tears, so he hastily comforted her with a, "Want to read some more of the books in my trunk?" and she'd brightened up just like that.

"I think you've just made your first friend, Harry," said Death beside him, offering an amused smile.

"That's silly," he said out loud. "_You're_ my first friend."

Death smiled at him. It would have been a very heartwarming moment, if not for Hermione's intrusion.

"Who are you talking to?"

"Who am I _always_ talking to?" he replied to her question with a question, and she nodded and looked back ahead. After all, everyone in Hogwarts already knew that Harry Potter was a little bonkers: who else would talk to someone purely in their imagination? She didn't need to ask anything more about it, but if asked, he'd say that he thought she looked a little sad and a little sympathetic, like she thought he _was_ insane. It didn't bother him.

After all, almost everyone in Hogwarts looked at him like that.

He didn't mind. They didn't get the same luxury he did: being friends with Death, being friends with such a powerful, dangerous, and yet simultaneously kind being that transcended life itself.

Really, Harry thought that he could pity them all, if he'd tried a little harder.

—

"How are you liking Hogwarts, my dear boy?"

Albus Dumbledore reminded Harry an awful lot like the grandfather he wished he never had: the man offered him candy every few minutes as though forgetting that he had already done so before, and he never once called him anything but _my dear boy_ or _Harry_, as though he wanted to be friends with him. Harry knew that was not true, however. No one ever wanted to be friends with him. Except for Death, who sat on the edge of Albus' desk, eternally unseen, and peered at him critically as though searching for a particular something among his features.

"It's interesting," replied Harry mildly, and Dumbledore blinked. Harry was certain that Hogwarts had never been described as just _interesting_ before. He thought it amazing, magnificent, a work of art, something that he had never seen the likes of before. It was an entirely _new_ thing, with its talking portraits and moving staircases, and he had spent his saturdays and sundays walking the corridors, searching through every nook and cranny with Death, _exploring_.

There was a lot to explore, he'd found.

But he wouldn't tell that to Dumbledore.

The man recovered impressively quick, his eyes sparkling. "Yes, it is, isn't it?"

"My aunt told me a lot about it, but I didn't really believe her at some parts. Especially when she told me that the portraits talked and moved. They don't do that in the Muggle world, you see. But I guess everything she told me was true."

Dumbledore smiled, and then seemed to think for a moment, and then frowned. "Your aunt? Do you mean Petunia Dursley told you about Hogwarts?" He seemed surprised. Harry understood why. He remembered the horse-like woman, cooing over her precious Dudleykins, hitting Harry over the head with a frying pan one too many times. Every time something _freaky_ had happened, her face had soured even moreso. She hated magic — why would Petunia Dursley tell him anything about it?

Death looked up, her interest peaked.

Harry pretended as though he was confused. "Petunia Dursley? I haven't been with the Dursleys since I was seven, sir," he said, and tilted his head, "They're dead."

The strange twinkle in Dumbledore's eyes died out.

"Oh," he said faintly, and then again, "Oh. I'm very sorry to hear that, my boy."

Death snorted. "He has no idea what those brutes did to you. For someone who most considers the most powerful wizard in the world, he certainly is _naive_."

Harry had to agree.

"I'm not," he murmured lightly, peering at his fingernails. "I didn't like them. Uncle Vernon had locked me out in the garden one day for burning breakfast. I fell asleep under the tree and when I woke up, the house was on fire." Only the very last part of that story was true. He had so enjoyed watching the house burn alongside Death; but the Dursleys had been dead long before that. "I went to an orphanage for a while, and then I was adopted by Aunt Astraea, who explained magic to me."

There was a long, tense pause.

"May I go now, sir?" he asked quietly, looking up at Dumbledore, who looked the palest that Harry had ever seen him.

"Yes, Harry," the man replied, looking distracted. "Thank you for taking the time to speak with me."

When they were alone outside of the Headmaster's office, Death smiled down at him.

"And thus, the seed is planted."


	3. i am a thousand winds that blow

"Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy cordially invite you to their annual Christmas ball. . ." read Death, dark eyebrows rising further and further towards her hairline. Harry felt a spark of excitement deep inside of him, despite himself. He had not celebrated the first six Christmases of his life; those cheerful days had been reserved for Dudley and his parents, and them alone, while he was locked in his cupboard and told not to make a single sound.

But the last four Christmases had been spent with Death. She had taken him to Italy when he was seven, to France when he was eight, to America when he was nine, and had taken him to Australia when he was ten instead of going through with all of the traditional ideas of Christmas.

He and Draco were not friends. They had fooled no one into believing that they were. They were simply classmates, housemates, and nothing more. He did not like the boy, and the boy, in turn, seemed to hate _him_, likely because of their confrontation on the train and the comment he'd made when the boy had dropped from his broom high in the air. And yet Lucius Malfoy had invited him nevertheless, and he wondered whose idea that had been.

"Would you like to go, Harry?" she inquired lightly as she skimmed the letter again.

"Why not?" he drawled, and to their credit, his roommates didn't even look up. Theodore Nott, with his odd vacant stare and bland brown hair, had never even cared about Harry, and Blaise Zabini had grown used to it. And Draco — well, he simply ignored Harry's tendency to speak out loud to no one at all. "It could be interesting."

Death grinned wide, and her teeth were white and almost sharp. "Wonderful. I believe that he expects you to bring a guardian. . ."

Now it was Harry's turn to grin.

—

"Remember, Harry," said the tall, blonde-haired woman behind him. "I am Astraea Silvan, and—"

"—you are my guardian. Yes, I know. We _have_ been over this a few times too many, you know."

Death laughed, and it was a laugh so unlike her that it made him frown for a moment. Where her laugh was high but soft at the same time, and so very loud, this woman beside him's laugh was breathy, like it was fake. He knew better than to think it was. "I just wanted to make sure, dear."

Malfoy Manor was a very impressive structure. It towered high, and he caught glimpses of white peacocks as they were entering through the walkway. It was beautiful and lit up by chandeliers inside, and Astraea Silvan's hand was light in its position curled around his shoulder.

The Silvans were purebloods, although had never gravitated towards The Dark Lord or the idea of becoming Death Eaters like most — the Silvans lived mostly in solitude, and Death, naturally, had taken on the persona of Astraea. After killing the real Astraea, of course.

They were introduced to ladies Goyle and Crabbe, who, if anyone asked Harry, would say quite directly that they looked a fair bit like their sons. Death also offered up her suspicions that they were cheating on their husbands with eachother. Theodore Nott was with his mother, who was gaunt and thin and as bland looking as her son, save for her strangely vibrant eyes, and his favorite was Celeste Zabini, the black widow he'd heard so much about. She was the most beautiful woman there, wearing a polite, cool smile and dark silk.

He had seen Lucius Malfoy once or twice on his first trip to Diagon Alley, but up close he was almost pretty, with his platinum-blonde hair. After a moment of examining it subtly, Harry came to the conclusion that it was even longer than his wife's.

"Astraea Silvan," introduced the blonde next to him coolly, her blue eyes watching all three Malfoys as though they were raw pieces of meat and she was a wolf. Harry bit his tongue to keep from laughing. Draco, who had none of the manners his parents had, was staring openly.

"You are young Harry's guardian?" asked Lucius, and his voice could not have sounded any more surprised if he had tried.

"I had thought that obvious when we arrived together," replied Death, and Harry masked a smile by pretending to cough. It worked, surprisingly enough; no one spared him a glance.

Lucius smiled, but Harry rather thought that he looked more like he was hurting.

—

She let him stay up until one in the morning, opening presents and laughing at letters that were sent to him from all over Britain, from excited people who worshipped the very ground he walked on. It was a little disgusting, frankly, and he allowed Death to burn every single letter, save for the ones that actually had something useful in them. He got a box of homemade chocolate biscuits, for example. Death liked them. Naturally, he did too.

By far the most interesting present he'd received, however, was an invisibility cloak. It poured over his fingers like silvery silk, and Death played with it with an odd glint in her eyes. "I wonder who it's from," she pondered softly, the corners of her mouth twitching. The note read _use it well_.

He laughed. They both knew already.

—

Albus Dumbledore waved his wand over the package on his desk, curiosity nearly overruling his good sense. He leaned forward to touch it only when it was determined to be harmless; beneath brown paper and twine, the package was soft. He freed the carefully-folded note that had been tied to the package and read it out loud, moreso for Fawkes' amusement than his own.

_Headmaster_,

_Happy Christmas._

_Harry Potter **and Astraea Silvan**_

He found himself smiling, and he found himself laughing as he opened the package to find a bundle of colorful, patterned socks, but not even that could get rid of the realization that Harry Potter's guardian had written on this parchment. Not Petunia Dursley, not Vernon Dursley, not the way it _should_ have been. No, a Silvan had written this. The fact was that the Dursleys were Muggles of the most monstrous sort. Harry had told him himself. _Locked out in the garden_. Who would do such a thing to such an innocent child? It was no one's mistake but his own. Albus knew that. Minerva had warned him repeatedly. Had he listened, perhaps it would have been better for all of them.

He had seen Harry, the moment the boy had stepped into the Great Hall. Untamed black hair and green eyes. Even with those traits, he looked nothing at all like his mother or his father. He had Lily's eyes, and he had James' hair, and yet the way he held himself — more like a king, with the best posture he had ever seen in a child. And he had been sorted into Slytherin. It was — wrong. It was all wrong. And then reports of how Harry spoke to himself began coming in; from Minerva, who said that, while he'd been able to turn his match into a near perfect needle, silver and pointy without a red tip and then she had touched it and discovered it was still wood instead of silver, he also spoke to himself, looking beside him, not at his nearest classmate but simply at air, at a bare space. After all, no one sat by him, she'd said.

One of her Gryffindors — Ron Weasley — had told her that he thought Harry was _creepy_.

Severus had reported that his Slytherins thought the same of him.

Fawkes crooned to him comfortingly. For once, it didn't seem to work all too well; he frowned down at the curly lettering, and wondered where he could have gone so wrong.

And then he shook himself free of these regrets, and pulled his new socks on.

They were very warm.

—

Severus Snape got very few gifts every Christmas. He hardly minded; it wasn't as though he would go around giving out presents to everyone he knew, so he saw no reason for them to do so, either. Still, it was a tradition among the staff of Hogwarts that he'd always absolutely despised. Albus had given him a new scarf; it was black silk edged with green and silver, and by far the most enjoyed gift that the man had ever given him. Usually, the headmaster gave him socks that flashed through the most hideous of colors, or robes that did the same. Those items would spend their years in the very back of his closet, untouched and unseen.

Minerva had given him the usual bottle of Ogdens' Firewhiskey, which had become an unspoken tradition between the two of them. Most of the Professors simply kept it to a 'happy christmas', which was perfectly fine with him, although he certainly hadn't expected a Hufflepuff to hesitantly shove Potter's snowy owl into his arms on Christmas eve and rush down the dungeons without waiting for a reply or offering an explanation.

He glared after Hannah Abbott, and while he wanted to take points or give her detention with Filch for a week, it was amusement enough that she tripped over her robes while going around the corner. He retreated back into his quarters, idly stroking the owl's feathers as he untied the letter from around her leg. She flew to the corner, perhaps to wait for a reply or to wait for him to open the door again, as he tore open the letter.

He skimmed it quickly, and was quite happy with the fact that no one could see him gape.

_Professor Snape,_

_I didn't really know what to get you, so I settled on a letter. Maybe you can tell me what you want? Auntie Astraea has access to blood of the Banshee, Dryad and Troll variety and she also likes raising Sphinx cubs, so maybe you'd like one of them? If not, it's alright. Have a great Christmas!_

_Harry Potter **and Astraea Silvan**_

He sent the owl back without a reply, and knew enough about Potter (although not nearly enough as he would have liked), to know that the boy wouldn't mind.

He _never_ minded, even when Vincent Crabbe, Gregory Goyle and Draco Malfoy had woken him up on his first morning in the Slytherin dormitories with a bucket of ice water.

Potter had gone directly to him, dripping wet over the stone floors, shivering, his teeth chattering, and his face pale, and asked if he could start sleeping in the common room.

After interrogating the three culprits, very reluctantly, they'd confessed to it, so arrogantly that he'd wanted to slap all three of them. They were idiot boys from the Darkest of families, and he had done nothing but told them not to do it again. He had told Potter that no student was allowed to sleep in the common room.

It happened again. Naturally.

And that was when Potter had started fighting back.

He'd warded the area around his bed and trunk. The son of Lucius Malfoy had tried to get into his trunk, likely to set fire to his belongings or something worse, and had been violently electrocuted. Theodore Nott, with his strange, vacant voice, had claimed that he had only wanted to pull back the curtains so he could ask Potter for help with his History homework, claiming that no one paid attention in class except for the Boy-Who-Lived himself.

It was true, as it turned out, but that certainly hadn't stopped the wards from hanging him upside down until Potter pulled the curtains open from around his bed and let him down.

There had been silencing spells placed, too. Silencing spells that no first year could have done.

When he had ordered Potter to take the wards down, the boy had smiled beatifically, eyes darting to some empty space beside him, and then back to Severus, and he had said, "I'll allow the wards to let Theodore and Blaise in. They've never participated in the bullying. I hope Draco gets out of the hospital wing soon. I think he's learned his lesson."

Severus had wanted to tell him that Malfoys _never_ learned their lesson, but then Potter had laid down and returned to his book, and for some reason, Severus hadn't given him detention for his insolence.

Even though he very much wanted to.

As it turned out, however, Draco _had_ learned his lesson.

Staring at the letter in his hand, he read it again, and then again, and one more time, and then he threw it into the fireplace and watched it burn.

—

They returned to Hogwarts sooner than expected, as Death thought it was a very nice idea to stay there over the remainder of Christmas break and explore. As it were, he agreed completely with her, seeing as she was usually right about these sorts of things. They also agreed that the cloak had likely been sent to him for a reason. Someone _wanted_ him to explore. Or perhaps they were just overthinking it. Either way, on the twenty-seventh of December, he returned not arm-in-arm with a pureblooded, blonde-haired woman, but instead arm-in-arm with Death. It caused a bit of confusion amongst the staff members, understandably, but all Harry did was smile and say, "Aunt Astraea likes to be alone most of the time. I like it, too."

Oh, if only they _knew_.

It was hardly as though she _needed_ the cloak, so she drifted down the third floor with him, looking as though they were going to a picnic and not hunting for The Dangerous Thing that was apparently in the third-floor corridor.

"You'll protect me, won't you?" he whispered in a soft, child-like voice, watching as Death looked down at him, seeming somewhat startled. When he pulled the cloak back over his head so that she could see the grin on his face, she smacked him with a roll of her eyes.

"Brat."

That, of course, meant _yes_.

And then they both froze as Argus Filch's voice came to them. He was muttering. He often muttered, and this was no different. Normally, his mutterings consisted of bitter hatred directed towards the children of Hogwarts. Harry rather liked Filch. The man was funny, in the same way that Snape was funny. They both liked to try to intimidate Harry, and it never worked. That, in his honest opinion, was _hilarious_. He laid eyes upon Mrs. Norris, with her wide yellow lantern-like eyes and puffed up tail.

Death nudged him backwards and said, "Run."

So, naturally, he did. Out of sight, around the corner, and into a random classroom. It was dusty and ancient, clearly; and unused for quite some time. He quietly shut the door behind him just as Death appeared beside him again.

"You didn't kill him, did you?" asked Harry, concerned as to the fate of the old caretaker.

Death laughed. It was a noise like chimes, like wind, like warmth. He'd stopped wondering why Death always sounded so pleasant in everything she did a long time ago, really. "Of course not. I simply pretended to be Peeves."

Harry grinned. She _did_ do a great Peeves. He turned, not seeing how Death's face had fell from its previous smile as she saw what was in the center of the room. A great, tall mirror. He wondered briefly what a mirror would be doing in what looked to be an abandoned classroom. Perhaps it was some magical, enchanted mirror, like the one that talked to him every morning in the dormitory.

He reached up to touch the engraving.

_Erised__ stra ehru oyt ube cafru oyt on wohsi._

He blinked, read it again, and then tried it backwards. He always tried everything backwards. As it turned out, it worked this time. "I show not your face but your heart's desire." Oh. It _was_ magical, then.

"What do you see?" said Death behind him, unusually solemn.

He looked back to her, feeling like he didn't know what was going on. He didn't often feel that around Death, because she always told him everything. He smiled anyway. "Just myself, I'm afraid."

It was the truth, after all.


	4. i am the diamond glints on snow

"_Really_?" complained Death for the nineteenth time the next day, pursing her lips. "You didn't see anything?"

Harry sighed. He had a headache, and for once, it wasn't because of Quirrell. "Yes, Death. I only saw myself."

"That's impossible. You don't desire _anything_?"

"Well, you killed the Dursleys," he pointed out on his way to Potions class, smiling at the thought. Whenever he remembered the Dursleys, there was nausea, and then anger, and then happiness because they were _dead, dead, dead._ "And I have a friend. You."

"You did not see your parents?"

Harry looked up at her, blinking. "Why would I?" he asked, confused, "I've never seen them at all. Maybe the mirror can't form a desire if I can't _imagine_ that desire. Think of it as a Boggart facing someone who is fearless. It wouldn't take on a shape, it wouldn't know what to do."

"That is pathetic," she said, but she was smiling like it was a good thing he'd seen nothing in the mirror.

"I don't understand why a mirror like that would be in Hogwarts, anyway," replied Harry, narrowly avoiding collision with an out-of-breath Neville Longbottom. They both seemed to be late, although Harry had gotten so used to Snape giving him detentions (detentions which usually involved scrubbing cauldrons and cutting open bats for their spleens, which he thought was grotesque and unfair to the poor things) and yelling at him that he had stopped trying to be early a long time ago. After all, Snape would just make an excuse to tell at him for something else later on. "Isn't it sort of dangerous?"

"Apparently the three-headed dog on the third floor is _sort of dangerous_ too, but Dumbledore keeps it around."

"Three-headed. . ._what_?"

But Death had already vanished.

Grumbling, he pushed the door to the Potions classroom opened. He hated when she did that.

* * *

><p>It took a while for him to realize that, <em>yes<em>, there was a three-headed dog on the third floor, and _yes_, someone _was_ trying to get a very rare and very important Stone. It was hardly his job to clean up a mess that was not his to clean up, but Death had forced him to the third floor corridor, past the Cerberus and down the trapdoor. "I have a very bad feeling about this," he'd said as he jumped down and into the grasps of a plant, frowning. Death always seemed to lead him towards trouble, as though she _wanted_ him to constantly be a part of life-threatening situations, although she hadn't let him die _yet_. All those years ago, she had told him that he would not be on her List for a very long time, and perhaps it was stupid to believe her, but he did.

He'd known it was going to be Quirrell. After all, Death had been dropping hints the entire time. Sometimes, she liked being a vague, annoying pest. Still, a jolt of something that was a little bit like shock ran through him, quickly replaced by fear, and then disappointment.

"How anti-climactic," he said out loud. Quirrell was paying him no attention, however; all of that was fixated on the mirror in front of him. The Mirror of Erised. Harry still saw nothing in it; just himself, as he moved closer, slowly, hesitantly. How very disappointing, he thought: he was hoping the mirror had simply been broken the last time he'd looked into it, but it seemed as though there was nothing at all that he desired.

He knew what he would have seen, however, if Death had not come for him years ago.

He would have seen himself happy, or at least the closest thing to happy he could get.

He would have seen the Dursleys dead.

It was a good thing that he was happy and the Dursleys were dead already.

"Come here," Quirrell said, "Look into the mirror and tell me what you see."

Harry obediently peered into the mirror, trying to stall for as long as possible. Death was positioned behind it, as unhelpful as she ever was. She was just watching them, and while he knew The Laws (of Being the Most Powerful Entity Alive), he wished that she would do _something_. Maybe decide to move Quirrell up on her To-Die List? Anything that would get the man away from him.

"I don't see anything. Just myself. Mirrors do that, you know."

Quirrell snarled, sounding equal parts upset and terrified and angry as he shoved Harry aside. "Get out of the way!"

Death frowned. "He's not very polite, is he?"

Something compelled him to keep his eyes on the mirror for as long as possible. He felt like something to happen. He _hoped_ something was going to happen. Maybe Dumbledore would rush in and save him? Not likely.

And then—

Mirror-Harry crept a hand into his pocket, pulled out a glittering red stone, and then put it back in his pocket, and a weight dropped into Real-Harry's own.

A part of Harry wanted to scream. _This didn't make any sense!_

"He lies. . .he lies. . ." hissed a voice that was decidedly not Quirrell's or his own.

"Potter, come back here! Tell me the truth! What did you just see?"

"Let me speak to him. . .face-to-face. . ."

"Master, you are not strong enough!"

Harry had a very bad feeling about this. His bad feelings were usually right, too.

"I have strength enough. . .for this. . ." said the voice, and Professor Quirrell unwound his turban from around his head. Harry couldn't breathe, but that was probably because of the thickening smell of garlic in the air. Quirrell turned.

The second face was pale and ugly, twisted into something like but not quite human. His eyes were like gems; like rubies glittering, like the stone that Harry had somehow managed to retrieve from Mirror-Harry. He realized, then, that this was Voldemort; the same Voldemort who had wreaked destruction upon the Wizarding World, the same Voldemort who had killed his parents. Granted, none of that mattered much to Harry; he'd never seen his parents, after all, except in one tiny glimpse of a picture of a red-headed woman in the attic. One time. Just one time. Petunia had caught him and slapped him for _snooping_.

Death circled the room once, very quickly, like a shadow, and then she braced her hands on Harry's shoulders. He felt that familiar icy feeling fall over him. It was as soothing as it had always been. "Touch him, Harry."

Harry didn't want to, but he obeyed Death, as he always did, and touched Quirrell. It was odd to watch the man's face contort and twist in pain, and then he realized why. It was happening to him, too. He was screaming, burning — they _both_ were, and Harry felt like his scar was somehow going to split in two or that his head was going to split in two. It hurt, it hurt, _ithurtithurtithurtithurt_—and he really, really didn't want to die, especially in that moment, because he didn't want to leave Death alone. He had never wanted to leave Death alone. And if he died, then he'd just be another one of her souls in her collection, not someone to spend time with or to speak to.

She was his friend. That _meant_ something, didn't it? It always had.

"Harry!" Death sounded loud, frantic. She was _never_ loud or frantic. He took a moment to feel a spike of concern, taking root deep inside of him somewhere, alongside the blackness and the agony and the twisted feeling that he was burning alive along with Quirrell, and then hit the ground with a thud and a crack. He wondered briefly, before everything went black, if that had been his head or his arm: then again, everything was cloaked in a haze of equal and searing pain, particularly his scar, so he couldn't quite tell.

* * *

><p>It was snowing, he thought. It was cold and it was snowing; he opened his eyes to bright white, all around him. There was a hand on his shoulder: there was a chill set deep inside of him, twisting and winding around his insides like a snake. He wanted to be warm, wanted to be away from the snow, the ice, the frost; it was so cold, and he could not get rid of it, even when he pulled the sheets up closer and higher around himself—<p>

Wait.

Sheets?

He blinked, adjusting to the light of the hospital wing as he sat up. The hand drew away; it was Death's, naturally. No touch would ever make him feel so cold other than Death's. Albus Dumbledore was there by his bedside, watching him, smiling genially, eyes like bright blue lanterns in the setting of his wrinkled features. Harry pushed himself up against the headboard with little struggle; he was sore, and when Death had moved away, a warmth had flooded him, sudden and almost too hot, as though all of the heat in the room had rushed back into him at her touch's absence. He wasn't sure which feeling he preferred.

"So," Harry said, voice hoarse and throat dry. Dumbledore handed him a glass of water. "That happened," he added, and took a long sip.

Dumbledore smiled wider and patted him on the shoulder. "We will talk later, my boy. You need your rest."

Harry rather thought he'd had enough rest for a lifetime and a half, but he didn't say so: it gave him the opportunity to talk to Death and not look like a loon, after all. Although, Dumbledore looked like a loon all on his own and he never talked to himself; it couldn't possibly be so bad. Still, he waited for the man to walk away and begin to speak with Madam Pomfrey in soft, quiet tones before he looked to Death. "Is he dead?"

"Is who dead?" asked Death.

Harry rolled his eyes. "You know who."

"You-Know-Who, or Quirrell?"

Harry opened his mouth to give a witty retort, and then paused, frowning. "Both, actually."

"Quirrell is dead."

Harry smiled, no matter how sore and feeble and tired he felt.

"Voldemort isn't, however."

"Wonderful." Harry blinked up at her; her figure was beginning to blur more than normal, and he figured that he was tired, or that the potions were finally working their magic. "Is it too late to move far, far away, get a dog and change my name to something boring, like Joshua Smith?"

Death curled her fingertips tight around his shoulder. The following chill made him shudder, but he wouldn't have shaken Death away even if he'd wanted to. "I am afraid so, yes. Although, if you want a dog, I can do that for you."

"Nnngh," he mumbled as his eyes slipped shut, "Too much...work. I already have a Death."

The last thing he heard was her laughter.

Actually, the last thing he heard was Pomfrey, speaking to Dumbledore and Snape, "Does the poor boy always do that?"

"Do what?" said Snape.

"Talk to himself as though someone else is there," she replied after a long moment.

Snape snorted derisively. "Yes. He seems to have an imaginary friend."

_She's not imaginary_, he wanted to say, _She's real, she's always been real, and you're going to know that someday_, but then he was already asleep.

* * *

><p>Harry was recovering. Slowly. It seemed a lot slower than it had actually been, really: as soon as Madam Pomfrey had released him from the hospital wing and her Fussy Nurse talons, he went to the Slytherin common room. Blaise Zabini and Theodore Nott were sitting around the fireplace, playing chess, and Nott looked up first as he came in. "Welcome back, Potter," he said in that odd, vacant voice of his as he moved to take out Zabini's pawn.<p>

Zabini cursed fluently in a different language, ignoring Harry altogether.

"Thank you," he replied politely, sitting down on the sofa with his book. Death had stolen it from the library's restricted section for him as a get-well present. "How have you been, Theodore?"

Nott smiled. It was a strange, forced smile that showed too much teeth. Harry liked Nott; for one, the boy was the only one who treated him remotely well among all the Slytherins, Gryffindors and Ravenclaws (the Gryffindors thought him a traitor, the Ravenclaws thought him too strange, and the Hufflepuffs dealt with him because he usually ate at their table when the Slytherins weren't welcoming), and there was just something _else_ about the boy that was fairly strange.

Harry had always been drawn to strange things and strange people.

"I've been alright," said Nott, and destroyed another one of Zabini's pieces. Harry settled in with his book, and Death shook her head from beside him.

"Odd boy."

"I don't think _you_ can say what's odd," murmured Harry under his breath, and Death slapped him over the head.

Harry had always loved Death. Adored her, even. Not, of course, in the way that a pair of lovers would adore eachother: Death was graced with eternal life and he was nearly twelve, for one: the mention of love still made his stomach churn with disgust. Death was beautiful: he had always known that she was beautiful, even if he could never remember her features for a very long time, even if the outline of her face was faintly blurred like his glasses were smudged. Even, even, even.

Yes, Harry adored Death. After all, any sane person would adore their savior, the only friend they'd ever had. And Death was just that: the only friend he had, or would ever, have. After all, he did not plan on making any mortal friends, and Death certainly didn't try to encourage him into making any. He knew that she wasn't the jealous type in the slightest, but the idea of upsetting Death upset him, in turn. Yes, perhaps it was odd, but Harry was perfectly happy with having only one friend that no one else could or would ever be able to see without her permission.

Harry did not love Death in the way that someone would perhaps think he did. He loved her completely, wholly, even if she was a deadly entity invisible to everyone else, even if she was Death, even if it meant that, he, too, would eventually fall victim to her cold embrace. After all, he was not the one with eternal life, and he would die, like everything else. But the idea that she would be the last thing he saw before he died (and he did have complete faith in the fact that she had told him, time and time again just to make sure he actually believed her, that he would not die for a very long time) was comforting, even if he knew that most would be horrified at the thought.

She was his guardian, his best friend: the person who had _saved_ him from a lifetime of cooking and cleaning for the Dursleys, from a lifetime of misery. It was only natural that he be biased.

And, after all, the first and only person who had ever truly loved him was Death. Not many people could say the same. He'd be lying if he said it didn't make him feel giddy with self-importance.

And he was glad.

If he hadn't met Death on that fateful evening where she had let him out of his cupboard, caused Uncle Vernon to scream in nearly higher pitch than Aunt Petunia had ever done, and set fire to the house he'd lived in for what seemed like so very, very long, he would have likely been dead by now.

Or just very, very miserable.

He had once asked Death if she would be lonely after he died. The idea made him somewhat nauseous. He didn't want Death to be lonely, not at all. She had smiled flippantly, and she had patted his head, and she had said _of course not, Harry. I am Death. You are a mortal. We omniscient beings don't tend to miss mortals, you know. _

She had said those things, but for one brief second, he had caught a glimpse of her face, and that glimpse had been clear, crystal clear, and he had _seen_, seen her gaunt face, her dark eyes, her red mouth, and her eyes had glimmered strangely, and they both knew that she was lying like no omniscient being had ever lied to a human-mortal-child before, and for a moment, he wanted to point out that she did not sound convincing in the slightest.

But he didn't.

He hoped he would live for a very long time.

After all, that was all he could possibly think to give someone who could have everything at her very fingertips if she wanted.

**thanks to you darlings who are reviewing, favoriting & following. i hadn't expected people to like this fic so much, and it's super, super flattering that you do! i don't like this chapter much: it all seems just a bit forced to me, but i couldn't really fix any of it the way i wanted to, so let me know what you guys think.**


	5. interlude : i

Harry Potter was seven years old when he saw his first death.

His first _three_ deaths, actually.

The strange woman who had answered his call had touched Uncle Vernon, and it was strange to watch someone die. It looked just as though he had fainted or fallen asleep, right there outside of Harry's cupboard. But people did not sleep with their eyes open. People did not sleep pale and wide-eyed and absolutely breathless. Uncle Vernon's bloated chest did not rise and fall in a parody of life, and Harry was old enough to understand what had happened.

Aunt Petunia came from the kitchen, saw Uncle Vernon, and shrieked as though someone had smashed her favorite set of china to porcelain slivers; as though someone was taking the very life out of her, as though she was being drained of life and energy and blood altogether. She slumped there on the floor, sliding down against the wall, clasping her chest as though she thought her heart was going to beat right out of it, and Harry watched the other woman, the woman who had appeared in his cupboard with no noise or flash of light, she'd just suddenly been _there_. She was staring down at Aunt Petunia with an odd look on her face, and it took him a moment to realize that she was smiling.

It was not a nice smile, but for some reason, it comforted Harry.

She stroked Aunt Petunia's hair, and Harry thought — no, he _knew _— that he was the only one who could see Her, because Aunt Petunia did not react at all. But Uncle Vernon had seen her, in his last moments of life, in his last moments of bearing the luxury of having air to breathe and things to see and hear. Uncle Vernon would never do any of those things at all; not see, not hear, not talk, not breathe. He wouldn't work or talk to Aunt Marge over the phone about her mean, ugly dogs and about how much of a brat Harry was.

Harry thought that was very comforting, indeed.

"There, there," said the woman, and laughed. Then touched Aunt Petunia's cheek, gently, with a pale thin hand, and Harry saw his aunt slump in the same way Uncle Vernon had, although there was no thump because she'd already been on the ground, speechless and tearful.

Aunt Petunia had always been nice to him, compared to the way Uncle Vernon treated him, and he felt guilty for not feeling sorry that she was gonegone_dead_.

Dudley came from the kitchen, shouting, "What're you guys doing in there—" and then he had fallen too, like a puppet with its strings cut. It was grotesque how he spilled out over the floor, eyes bulging. He hadn't even had the chance to scream. Harry thought of how it was very unfair, for Dudley, and smiled.

She looked at him and patted his head, clicking her tongue against the roof of her mouth in a way that emitted sympathy. "Well, Harry. Do you think we're done here?"

_We're_, she said. She'd included him in that sentence.

"I don't know, miss," he replied, and he didn't.

He should have been scared, he thought. He should have been screaming or running, or...well, but he wasn't, was he? He was just standing here, staring at Dudley and Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia, all dead, all...gone. He'd spent most of his life with them. He didn't know what to do now, but he knew he didn't want to stay in the house with a bunch of corpses.

"Don't call me that," she said, and told him to go wait outside on the sidewalk. He watched as fire lit inside of the house. He could almost hear it crackling; it licked at the windows, curls of bright orange flame rising up, faster and faster, and he had never seen a fire grow so quickly. Then she was there, beside him, where she had not been before.

It was strange, wasn't it? It _was_ strange, that he didn't feel remorse at all as he linked hands with her outside of the burning house and watched the flames eat away at the fixtures. He could feel the heat, even from here, but her touch combated it, cold against hot; ice against flame, and he was not crying or shaking. Instead, he squeezed her hand, and she squeezed back, like she was trying to give him comfort.

"What do you want me to call you, then?" he asked, as the neighbors began clambering out of their houses and sirens roared in the distance. He wasn't at all afraid

"Well," she said thoughtfully, grinning down at him as though she thought he was particularly funny. "You can call me God. Or The Grim Reaper. Or you can call me Death."

Harry stared up at her with wide, innocent eyes, idly shuffling his feet on the pavement. The sirens were growing closer; he knew they'd have to leave soon. It was a relief, although he thought about Ms. Figg, the old lady who always gave him cake and biscuits and tea when he came over, and felt slightly remorseful for leaving her behind, all alone. All she would have were her cats, now.

But it was a lot better than staying _here_.

Death smiled down at him, all pearly white teeth and a thin, red mouth. Her face was gaunt, her fingertips long and closed tight around the curve of his shoulder, and her limbs were almost inordinately long and she was unusually tall, but he didn't feel scared at all. He just felt a sort of numbness inside of him, like perhaps it hadn't all set in yet. But it was a nice feeling, knowing that he'd never have to come back to this ugly place. It smelled like smoke and fire, the flames growing and growing, spreading and spreading. It was hypnotizing, but what was more hypnotizing was _her_, standing beside him.

She was a bit like the fire, young Harry thought. Harsh and sudden and cruel, but erasing everything that he'd ever hated.

"Can we get a dog?" he asked.

Her smile widened, as though that was exactly what she'd been waiting for him to say. "Maybe a snake," she said.

He didn't have time to say _cool_—Dudley had gone through hamsters and puppies and kittens and even a lizard at one point in his life, but he'd never had a _snake_—she swung him up in her arms, and the last thing he saw was an ambulance coming around the corner of Privet Drive.

And then they were gone.

Harry Potter was seven years old when he saw his first death.

He'd have been lying if he said he hadn't enjoyed it, just a little.

* * *

><p>In Scotland, tens of shiny little baubles and instruments inside of an old wizard's office shuddered, trembled violently, and then exploded outwards all together at once; the phoenix, nestled in the corner on its perch, startled and burst into flames early, and no one was there to see any of it until a few hours later.<p>

* * *

><p><strong>ah yes creepy child harry is my favorite harry. review please! i love reviews. and i love <em>you<em>. all of you. xo**


	6. i am the sunlight on ripened grain

It was Harry's birthday. He'd always hated his birthdays: they always came with a peculiar sense of foreboding. As though Luck decided to screw him over every time on the same day every year, usually around the same time he began to thought _oh, perhaps this won't be so bad after all._ Death had taken him to see Fate on his last birthday. Fate was a very unusual and a very unpleasant woman, who sometimes reminded him of Sybill Trelawney (whom he liked, even if she was a little odd), only much ruder, more vague and _very_ intimidating. She'd told him that she would die on his fortieth birthday surrounded by friends and family who all secretly hated him, although Death had told him afterwards that she wasn't allowed to tell anyone anything she knew, so she'd been lying.

This birthday, however, would not be taken up by visiting omniscient entities who threatened his life, but instead in Astraea Silvan's tower, which was less of a tower and more of a stone-and-marble structure that spiraled high into the sky. The very top floor had windows that, apparently, had once been used to push people out of when they challenged the Silvan House. Death spoke of it with a very eerie sort of glee.

Death nudged him sharply in the side with her elbow. "Are you going to cut the cake?" she drawled. "I'm _starving_."

He glared at her. "_My_ birthday. I decide when to cut the cake. And you're Death, you can't starve."

"_I_ think I am better fitted to decide when or when I am not starving, thank you very much. Especially as you just pointed out, _I am Death,_" she huffed indignantly, and he just smiled in response and put the knife to the three-tier triple chocolate cake that she'd insisted would _not_ go bad before they ate it all.

Before the blade could sink past the creamy frosting, a house elf appeared above their heads, and fell, and fell, and fell — and then landed with a loud _splat_ in the very center of the cake.

Death looked at Harry.

Harry looked at Death.

And, naturally, the house elf burst out crying as soon as he saw what he had done.

Harry reached out warily and plucked the house elf from the cake, holding the creature far away from him as though the poor thing had a disease.

"Stop crying," he said, and to his surprise, was obeyed. With one last, long wail, the house elf quieted, sniffling and sobbing his way to silence, staring up at Harry with eyes the size of golf balls. Rather large golf balls. Harry noted Death staring woefully at the cake beside him, poking and prodding at it as though it was a thing to be poked and prodded at, until, eventually, she just reached for the bottom tier, which was the only tier not damaged by the sudden and violent collision with a house elf's body.

Both of them noticed how the house elf's eyes flickered quickly to Death and back again, with a little shudder that suggested that, yes, he _had_ seen Death, and no, it _hadn't_ been a pleasant experience. Harry wondered if house elves saw Death in her true form, and then decided that he didn't care enough to ask.

There was a long moment of silence, and then, "Harry Potter must not return to Hogwarts!" the elf burst out suddenly, particularly loudly, as though he'd been keeping those words in for a very, very long time and had finally decided to let them go.

Harry looked at Death.

Death looked at Harry.

Harry looked back to the creature. "Well, alright then."

The house elf stared at him, with round eyes and a matching mouth. Clearly, that wasn't what it — _he_ — had expected at all, and Harry patted him on the head, leaning over to cut three slices of the cake. After a thought, he gave one to the hunched-over figure that was currently busying itself with beating its head against the wall. _Well,_ thought Harry, _at least he isn't crying anymore_. "Have some cake."

To his dismay, the elf began weeping again, in long shuddering sobs. "Oh," he moaned piteously, "Dobby does not deserve this _kindness_! Harry Potter truly is the greatest wizard who has _ever lived_!"

Death began laughing. "Yes, Dobby," she purred after swallowing a forkful of cake. "Harry Potter truly _is_." She sent Harry a teasing look over another bite, and he rolled his eyes.

"Eat the cake, Dobby," he ordered, pleased that he'd finally gotten a name out of the thing. He couldn't just keep calling it _house elf_, after all: that seemed rather rude. Dobby reached over, cradling the plate in his hands like it was a gift, or some ancient precious trinket handed down to him from his house elf ancestors. If house elves _had_ ancestors.

Dobby cried into the cake, but he _did_ eat a few forkfuls in the end.

After they were all full of cake, Harry patted the house elf on the bed. "Go on now, Dobby. I'm not going to Hogwarts if you say it's dangerous. I've had enough danger for a lifetime, thank you."

The house elf stared at him, and then at Death for a considerably shorter time, and then vanished.

"You're going back to Hogwarts, aren't you?" said Death knowingly.

"Of course I am," scoffed Harry.

Still, he had to wonder what sort of danger the house elf was speaking of, and at least he understood now why he'd felt that familiar sense of dread all day.

—

"The barrier is _solid_." Incredulity mixed with anger in a way that made his voice twist with something that made him sound as though he was about to vomit. He certainly felt like he could, even when he knew that Death would be able to fix it. She was always able to fix everything, after all: she was omniscient. Still, Hogwarts was like a second home to him now, and not being able to go there made an odd sort of panic swell in him, a panic that he hadn't felt since before he'd met Death. He pressed a hand against the wall again, and as expected, it did not meld through as it always had done before. As though it was just a normal wall. "That stupid house elf did this," he hissed, and Death looked amused.

"Actually, a very _clever_ house elf did this," she corrected him, peering at the wall. "Well, that's perfectly fine. We'll get there without the train. We hardly need it. . .and I hate riding on it, so it's a win-win. Morderske!" The name was familiar — too familiar, and Harry grimaced, just in time for a crow to appear on Death's shoulder. She was a horrible thing, black and red-eyed like some sort of demon bird, and while he'd only seen her four times at the most before, one thing he was certain of was that he _hated_ her.

She had nearly bit his finger off, once.

Death, on the other hand, _loved_ the beast. "Hello, my darling," she crooned, stroking her head. "Deliver a message to Severus Snape for us."

She vanished as quickly as she had come, with a pointed squawk in Harry's direction.

He shuddered.

"Why Snape?" he asked, against his better judgment.

"Simple. I like Severus more than I like Albus. Now, we simply have to wait," said Death, grinning down at him like a victorious cat who'd caught itself a meal. He rolled his eyes; she _knew_ he hated waiting. A small part of his mind wondered idly how the two wizards would react to being told that the human shell of Death had called them by their first names.

She leaned close to him, close enough so that he could feel a strange chill, emanating from the very core of her being. She wasn't breathing. She never breathed, after all; she didn't have to, but if she did, Harry was certain that her breath would be as icy as the rest of her. Death ran a soothing hand over his arm, her grin softening into a comforting smile, and then to nothing at all, countenance wiped clear of anything telling.

"Don't worry, Harry," she said, "Perhaps we'll get there in time for the feast and that disgusting pumpkin juice you like so much."

—

There was something _wrong_ with Harry Potter.

The entire staff and most of the students knew it; it was just that Severus Snape was the only one who mentioned it. Not even his Slytherins made a habit of taunting the boy any longer, seeing as the last time one of them had done so, he'd been carefully threatened with a precise and gory detailing of his upcoming decapitation if he did it again. Severus had never been anything but calm and collected, and yet something about the Boy-Who-Lived (not even that he talked to himself, or that he had been sorted into _Severus'_ house) made him very uncomfortable. It always had.

He was not the only one who felt that way, he knew. Sinistra had made it a point to avoid all conversation of Potter altogether, escaping the staff room with a practiced skill whenever the mere name was brought up, and even Sprout, who liked Harry and his affinity for her plants, was uneasy around the boy whenever she spent more time around him than absolutely necessary. It was luck, then, that had none of them spending time with the boy, or having to. Detentions were far and few between, mostly with Severus, or by Severus with Filch for what he liked to call a _gross lack of respect_.

The boy was eager to dissect dead bats without a grimace; once, he'd caught Potter cutting at the bat idly with a lack of precision that had horrified even Severus while talking to the air beside him, and Severus had resolved never to let him go near bats again, but instead have him scrub out cauldrons until his arms were aching. And still, Potter never complained.

Whether or not it was because he was, for some reason, _used_ to cutting open deceased bats or, unlike the other students — even most of the other Slytherins — didn't _mind_ the task, Severus certainly didn't plan on asking him.

He sighed and stood from his chair, one that had been feeling more and more comfortable as the minutes passed. It was almost time. Time for the Starting Feast, time for impetuous little brats to flood the Great Hall, whispering to eachother excitedly, all so _irritating_, all so nosy. He was certain he'd never, _ever_ been like that as a child. But then, he'd never managed to have a decent childhood, either. He exited his office, knowing that the peace of not being interrupted constantly by students running around in the corridors and — _mingling_ — would soon come to a very sudden end, and he would be miserable again for months and months. Severus walked through the corridors with ease, knowing nearly every inch of Hogwarts by instinct alone. It had been his home for many years, after all; first as a student, and then as a Professor.

"Severus Snape!" He looked up at the sudden voice, far too close to him for comfort. It was feminine, strangely feminine; raspy and guttural, as though somehow someone had charmed the voice to be a very poor impression of a human's. He realized, then, that was a very probable explanation, seeing as the voice came from a _bird_.

He felt as though someone had poured a bucket of ice water over his head. It was an unpleasant feeling, yes, but not nearly so unpleasant as seeing the crow that flew onto his shoulder as though it was an everyday occurrence.

"My master can't get through the barrier, Severus Snape." It nudged Severus' jaw with its head in an oddly catlike way. Almost as though. . .it was _nuzzling_ him.

"What—" Severus swallowed, feeling only somewhat dizzy. It was _fine_, he convinced himself: it was just a magical crow, a familiar. _Someone's_ familiar. He had no reason to be so unnerved. "Who is your master?" he asked, only after clearing a lump from his throat.

"Harry Potter. Who else?" It made an odd cackling sound.

He hissed with irritation. Of _course_. Potter. Who else, indeed.

"What do you mean, he can't—"

"I _mean_," she trudged over his own voice impatiently, "He can't get through to the train. Someone's blocked it." It put an odd emphasis on the word _someone_, but he paid no attention to it. Later, he'd realize that he should have.

Yes, he was most certainly getting a headache.

"Very well, bird," he said stiffly, "Thank you for delivering the message."

"_Bird? _I am no simple _bird_! Hmph. I don't know _why_ my mistress likes you." With that, it flew from his shoulder with a strange squawk.

So focused on the fact that Potter's familiar had vanished — simply _vanished_, as though it hadn't ever been there — only moments before it reached the corner at the end of the corridor that he paid no attention to the fact that the crow had said _mistress_.

—

**thanks to all of you, including _magery_ whose review encouraged me to write out this next chapter. happy halloween.**

**EDIT: sorry for the false notice, i had to repost after fixing a few things. i thought i had done so already, but i was wrong.**


	7. i am the gentle autumn rain

Death had never liked mortals. They were whiny and terrible; whiny and terrible as babies, as young children, as teenagers, as young adults. She (and even that was a word of mere convenience instead of an actuality: Death was not a she, not a he, not even an it; Death simply _was_) was disappointed in the human race as a whole. They were all flesh and blood and bone and no _real_ strength; perhaps in another few hundred years, they'd be taken over by something better, but the only ones who would ever know that would be the Triplets, the Three Fates, three pieces of a whole thing, sisters that pranced around all day in human shells. Death did not understand how they could stay in such a tight, uncomfortable skin; she, herself, had to leave her human's side for a couple of hours each day just to cleanse and erase the feeling of strange, restricting humanity from herself.

Yes, mortals were weak and pathetic; they lived for a hundred years at the most, although some lived past that, and even then that was not a great accomplishment, for their vessels withered and died away as they, mind and soul, lived on. She preferred those who died younger; _their_ souls, at least, did not taste stale, did not leave a bitter aftertaste in the back of her throat.

She especially hated the children. They cried when they died; their last thoughts were always somewhere along the line of _I hope it doesn't hurt_. It never did, of course. Death _never_ hurt anyone. She gave them peace, an eternity beyond the Veil as some of the humans called it. Other humans called it Heaven, or Hell, or the Hereafter, or the End. They did not realize that none of it mattered. After all, it was not in her job description as Death to cause the mortals agony. Once they were dead, they were so full of happiness, to be reunited with their loved ones or, if they hadn't had any loved ones in a previous life, they gained friends in the next, that they did not even notice the emptiness inside of them, where their very life energies, their very souls, the reason they'd lived on for so long, had been taken.

By her, naturally.

But she had broken a Law the day she had saved Harry Potter, the day she had Killed before the Dursleys appeared on the List. It was of no consequence to anyone, of course. She was _Death_, and she had not broken a Law in a very, very, _very_ long Time; she could easily afford one or two or three mortals taken before their time was truly up. It was not as though they Mattered in the end. Mortals rarely did, unless you counted Albus Dumbledore or, indeed, Harry Potter, who had changed everything without even laying a fingertip on Fate's Wheel.

Death, too, had changed everything, the very moment she had laid eyes upon Harry Potter.

She had not left him in the throes of his agony and fear, after all. She could have done so, but he had stared up at her with wide green eyes, a swollen bruise on his cheek from where his uncle had hit him two days earlier for stealing two pieces of bacon. Death had always held an equal contempt for every mortal; they were all so _beneath_ her that it was nearly sickening. But giving them death was merely a job. A task for her to do, again and again and again, every day for the rest of her long, unending existence (for _life_ was far too ironic a word to use).

And then she had killed the Dursleys, and for the very first time, she had enjoyed Taking someone.

Time, what with his snide, ominous mannerisms, had taunted her for nearly two years about how she had fallen in love with a _mortal _boy, how she followed him around like a puppy, how she had become friends with a _human_ who would die sooner than she'd expect. Only when she had broken one of his favorite clocks did he finally cease, but by then, his lesson had sunk in. He'd been right, even if she hated to admit it. Her human was no more _hers_ than she was _his_ Death, and yet she was fond of him and Harry had made it clear that he was equally fond of her.

As one would be of _family_.

She'd never had a family. Omniscient deities didn't tend to, after all.

The very idea of having one made her grimace. But it was only one boy. One boy who was destined to save the world. One boy who would eventually die, but, unless the Fates changed things of their own will, was not to die until he was ancient for a mortal and content.

The thought, nevertheless, made her ill.

She had already asked the Fates (or, rather, _the_ Fate, as the other two were like drones that did nothing but cut and spin, cut and spin, cut and spin; they all shared one mind, but Lachesis was the one who made the decisions, and the only one who spoke directly to anyone) to cut the String connecting her to Harry Potter; to slice open the bond so that it would cease, so that she would not feel an odd sense of loss whenever she was not by her human's side, so that she would stop feeling compelled to come to him again and again, following him around as though she had nothing better to do.

She did, of course. Death always had better things to do, but she still liked being with him more than anything else, and that was _troublesome_. And she hated it. And she wanted it _gone_.

All Lachesis had told her, however, was that Atropos, one of her dull sisters, would not cut the Bond, and so it would not be cut. Which might have very well been a _fuck off_ in Fate-speak, really.

It was irritating, Death decided with a very..._decisive_ tone of thought.

Yes. It was all very irritating. And what was even worse was that she could do nothing about it.

It was Fate. According to the most annoying set of triplets in the entire span of eighteen dimensions.

—

Hedwig, his owl, and Morderske, Death's crow, did not get along in the slightest.

It was the same with Dumbledore's phoenix. Morderske flew in circles above their heads, cawing mockingly down at them, talons just barely brushing the Headmaster's familiar's feathers every time she dipped lower; she would not stop, even when Harry asked her to in the kindest tone he knew how to use. "I didn't know you had a familiar, my boy," said Dumbledore, eyes glittering with amusement he wasn't even _trying _to hide; and, well, if he was, it was a very poor attempt.

"I don't," replied Harry with a roll of his eyes, glaring up at Morderske. Snape had called her _that infernal winged monstrosity from Hell_, and for once, Harry was inclined to agree with the surly man; only Death could keep such an unpleasant pet. It was hardly uncharacteristic of her: after all, she also kept a pack of two-headed hounds when she was particularly interested in making a statement. And a flock of killer vultures. And a rabbit with very sharp teeth. She called herself an _animal lover_, but he had the feeling that she just liked keeping dangerous beasts. Sort of like Hagrid, he supposed. "She's my aunt's."

"Ah, yes," said Dumbledore understandingly, and the strong twinkle in his eyes dwindled to a low glitter as he frowned. "Dear Astraea. I have been meaning to speak with her, but it appears that she's, for a reason I do not quite understand, blocked the floo of Castle Silvan."

_Damn_, was Harry's first thought. Death spent so little time actually _being_ Astraea Silvan; after all, she was by his side or in The Other Realm most of the time, doing what any omniscient deity did best. It also occurred to him, after a moment, that he had not known that the Headmaster and his 'aunt' were on speaking terms; but then, he'd never asked. And Death certainly had never told. "Yes," he said with a relaxed air he did not feel, "She doesn't spend much time in the castle. She doesn't like it; she says it's too big for just one person. When I'm at Hogwarts, she leaves and goes to Italy."

"Ah, Italy," replied Dumbledore after a moment. He was smiling again. That was good, Harry hoped. "I do love Italy. Do you know, I received my second favorite pair of socks in Italy?"

Harry nodded like he understood what the man was blathering about. "They do make good socks, sir."

From above them, Morderske shrieked loudly and dove from the Headmaster's open window, only after nearly knocking Fawkes from his perch. "I _hate_ it when she does that," muttered Harry irritably, rubbing his ear.

Dumbledore chuckled genially and leaned forward. "Tell me, Harry," he began, "do you know who kept you from Platform Nine and Three Quarters?"

Harry nearly sighed. Instead, he shrugged and prepared to spin a tale of pretty lies.

After all, he couldn't have the Headmaster figuring out anything before he did.

—

Harry had met Lockhart only briefly in Diagon Alley; or, rather, had watched him from afar as reporters surrounded him in the bookstore, but up close, he was so much more glamorous, and far more annoying. He reminded Harry, in all, of a preening peacock, and Harry _liked_ peacocks. Lockhart, however, was capable of speech and writing terrible fairytale books.

"I want to _kill_ him," seethed Death only after the man had opened a cage of pixies and escaped away into his office, one hand going to the hilt of her silver scythe. Sitting under the safety of a desk, idly watching Neville Longbottom flail helplessly from where he was dangling from the chandelier, Harry had to agree completely.

—

Severus Snape was a very unhappy man. Granted, he was usually a very unhappy man; in the mornings, in the afternoons, in the evenings. On Mondays, Tuesdays, Thursdays, Wednesdays, Fridays, Sundays and sometimes even Saturdays. It was simply in his nature. He had never been wholly happy; not as a child, not as a teenager, not as a young adult. Sometimes he was satisfied. Sometimes he was even Slightly Content, but joy had no place in Severus Snape's life, and everyone knew it. He made sure of it.

Something was Off with Potter. He'd noticed it the first time he'd laid eyes upon him, and all the times after that as well, although before, he'd simply taken it upon himself to assume that perhaps James Potter had dropped him on his head as a child. It certainly seemed like something the idiot would do.

But over the past few weeks, the feeling that had always been there somewhere inside of him, a suspicious nagging feeling that often distracted him from most other things, had been growing stronger. And what was worse, what was even _more_ irritating, was that no one else on the staff seemed to notice it. They all thought that Potter was a perfectly normal twelve year old boy, innocent and lighthearted and so very sweet and intelligent, if not slightly strange at most times. Except for Vector, but the severe-looking woman (who had often been mistaken as a relative of his) was suspicious of everyone and everything. She checked her food and drink for poison at every mealtime, for crying out loud.

This feeling had been making him more and more uncomfortable, until he'd finally taken to staring at Potter, trying to find out what the boy must have been hiding. It had to be _something_. Some secret, some—_plan_. Oh, he really _was_ beginning to sound like Vector on one of her worse days. Potter was just sitting there, as excluded from the rest of Severus' Slytherins as he ever was, eating a few bites of his mashed potatoes every other minute and, as usual, talking to the empty space beside him.

He strongly resisted the urge to freeze on the spot as Potter looked up at him, very slowly, and deliberately, like he'd known that Severus was staring at him the entire time. Severus had _never_ frozen on the spot, and he certainly wouldn't start now, so he glared back, as fiercely as he could, which was very fierce indeed. Potter kept looking at him, however; that was another Odd thing about the boy. He wasn't _scared_ of Severus. Really, it was irritating.

Potter flashed a very white smile at him and looked back down to his plate after a moment.

And, for a moment, Severus swore that he'd seen the brat wink at him.

_Ridiculous_.

Severus took a deep breath, exhaled it in a sharp sigh, and lifted his goblet of water to his mouth, taking a long drink and wishing it was something much stronger, feeling very envious in that moment of Vector, who always had a goblet of Firewhiskey at her side.

Yes, Harry Potter was Odd, and he was going to get to the bottom of it if it was the last thing he did.

—

Death stroked his hair lightly with a long-fingered hand, staring up at the staff table long after Harry, himself, had looked away. "I do believe he's grown suspicious, child."

"Yes," he drawled slowly, pushing his food around his plate with his fork, "I think he has."

She sighed. "The souls of those who know about me always taste so much better than those who don't."

"Is that a hint?" he asked blandly, but when he looked up, Death was gone.

—

He had detention with Gilderoy Lockhart. Normally, this would not be a problem. He'd always managed to make the Professors end his detentions early. All he had to do was speak with Death, and they'd look at him oddly for a while and then send him off with a very sympathetic, very befuddled smile on their poor little faces. Granted, Snape had never been outwardly befuddled, nor sympathetic, and he certainly had never smiled, but he, like the other Professors, always made him leave. They thought it _eerie_. They thought _him_ eerie. Rightfully so, of course, and he used it to his advantage.

But Lockhart seemed blissfully ignorant. And Death was not around to speak to.

He dipped the peacock quill into the inkwell again, staring woefully at the large stack of letters. Fanmail. Fanmail, from little girls and grown women all over the world, and even some men — one who had written a letter that he'd clearly been drunk whilst writing, which described the way he wanted to..._ugh_. No, he wasn't going to think about that. He'd tossed it into the fire while Lockhart wasn't looking. He _accidentally_ knocked over the inkwell as he drew away; it spilled over Lockhart's glittery robe sleeve. "Oh," he said blankly, "I'm so sorry."

Lockhart chuckled nervously, probably because he'd looked up and seen the look on Harry's face. "No, it's perfectly fine, my boy, perfectly fine...accidents happen, you know!"

"Yes," said Harry in the same tone, and then pulled over another letter to write on. He murmured under his breath, "Accidents like stabbing this quill into your eye and watching you suffer." Lockhart didn't seem to hear. If he had, he pretended that he hadn't. Pity. Somewhere in the middle of answering fanmail, he began to doze off there and then; it was warm in Lockhart's office, and the man was looking just as tired as him and yet hadn't dismissed him. He gave up the pretence of writing and shoved the ominous-looking pile of letters away.

"_...come...come to me..._"

He blinked. "What?"

Lockhart jerked awake, mumbling nonsense. "Hm? Oh. You're still here, Mister Potter."

"_...let me rip you...let me tear you..._"

Harry glanced around the office, and then stood stiffly, suddenly wishing Death were here. _She_ would have been able to hear the voice, he knew. Hoped. "Yes. I'm leaving now. Goodbye, Professor." He didn't wait for a response; he left the quill, dripping with ink, on the man's desk and left.

"Death," he called desperately once he was outside of the Professor's office, but she did not appear to him.

"_...let me kill you..._"

He'd never been particularly frightened of anything, not since Death had retrieved him from the Dursleys. After all, when you had Death as your guardian, why be scared of anything at all? He was not scared even now; just confused and sluggish. Tired. And he was hearing voices. How very lovely.

He went back to the common room, avoiding Blaise Zabini who, as always, was up late at night and reading by the fireplace. Snape favored Zabini in the same way he favored Malfoy, only slightly moreso; he allowed the boy to stay up as late as he liked, and Harry supposed that there was a reason for it, but he didn't care enough to ask. He went up the stairs, stretched his aching fingers and laid down, quietly pulling the curtains shut around his bed. He closed his eyes and tried to remember what the fleeting voice had sounded like, but then he fell asleep and barely remembered it in the morning.

—

Severus Snape dreamed that he was drowning in a thick, sticky, bitter liquid. It tasted like blood, but it had the consistency of tar, such a dark red that it was nearly black; he was choking on it, swallowing it, desperate and coughing. He could not breathe, because the fluid was viscous running down his throat, pressing against his teeth. It was tacky enough to stick his teeth together, to clamp his jaw shut; it tasted like how the worst of potions would taste, if the worst of potions happened to be mixed with mud and blood. There was something above him, not the sky, not a ceiling, not a person; but a shadow, that stretched far and wide across him like it was trying to envelop him and the pool of blood-tar completely, like it was trying to sink into him and around him and against him.

He was afraid of that shadow, he realized distantly, in some very far, very idle corner of his mind.

The shadow grew a cloak and the beginning curves of a body, like something or someone was stepping out of it, and it grew a hand, and that hand, pale and long-fingered, so thin that knuckle and wrist and finger bones pressed up from beneath the sickly-looking flesh, appearing eerily skeletal in nature, stretched out to him.

He didn't want to take it. It seemed like, if he did, that would be the end of all things, although he wasn't sure how anything could be worse than being swallowed whole by a pool of bloody tar that was somewhat reminiscent of quicksand, the way it pulled at him. But he did, after a moment that seemed to stretch on for years and years; he curled his fingers around the hand, and it pulled up, up, up, and he was breathing and gasping and choking.

And he sat up in bed; breathing, gasping, choking. He felt ill, tangling himself in his sheets; he was cold with sweat, and somewhere in the midst of his dream he'd bitten through his tongue so that he tasted copper, the same taste that the tar had been in his dreams. He threw his sheets back desperately, and when he thought he was going to vomit, he did not; he bent over the sink instead, did not stare at himself in the mirror and instead rinsed out his mouth repeatedly. He stayed there for what seemed to him like a very long time, watching the water run in rivulets from his trembling hands. His head was pounding, the room spinning strangely around him.

It felt, he thought, somewhat like the aftereffects of the Cruciatus Curse.

Someone whispered sweetly in his ear, "Bad dreams, dear?"


End file.
